


Tumbling Walls

by betsytheoven



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:50:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6175636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betsytheoven/pseuds/betsytheoven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bitty gets a full-body search going through TSA because he hasn't stopped grinning since, well. Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tumbling Walls

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has taken me too long to write but I loved writing it because all I want is for these two boys to be truly and unbelievably happy all the time.
> 
> A big shout out needs to be made to [Codie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jackzimmermann/pseuds/jackzimmermann) , who is constantly reminding me to be brave enough to love again. Thank you.

It’s hard to believe love is worth the risk.

Bitty never thought it was worth the pain to chase something as impossible as love.

 

 

With graduation fast approaching, Bitty was spending more and more time with Lardo out in the Reading Room. The steady stream of boxes and discussions of after were starting to wear on Bitty’s ever-present smile.

The nights were beginning to warm up in the weeks leading up to graduation, but Bitty still pulled his limbs close for security, if not warmth.

Every time they sat out on the roof, they had the same conversation:

“You should tell him Bits.”

“It’s not worth the risk.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’d rather have him as a friend.”

And that would be the end of it. Just a quick reminder for Bitty that telling Jack was not an option.

But then Lardo had to go and ruin his resolve just before graduation.

 

 

They went through their normal routine, but instead of keeping quiet or throwing rocks down at whoever was in the yard, Lardo asked him a quiet question.

“Is that really going to be a good friendship? For either of you?”

Lord but if that didn’t catch Bitty off guard. “What do you mean?”

Lardo sighed and looked down at the roof tile she had been drawing on for the past few days.

“Bits… if you’re hiding something this big from Jack… It’s not fair to either of you. You don’t get to feel comfortable around Jack, and he doesn’t get to know you—the Whole You.”

There was a small string that hung from the left sleeve of Bitty’s jacket. He twisted it left and right and tried to figure out a way to snap it off without pulling the whole string out. It bought him a few extra seconds to figure out some way to respond to that.

“You don’t want to regret not telling him.”

But that was never Bitty’s worry. He had a dream a week back that was so bright and soft and warm where Jack sat and ate breakfast and smiled over the table at Bitty and then they did dishes and sat around in their PJs just leaning on each other. When he woke up from the dream, his first thought was to seal the dream away because Jack could never find out. It would change the way he saw Bitty and the friendship that they had been building would come tumbling down. Jack would be disgusted with him and his start in the NHL would be tarnished and then Bitty would lose one of the best friends he had had in a long time.

“I don’t want to regret  _ telling _ him.”

There was a shout from somewhere deep inside the Haus, but otherwise the night was quiet and sharp. Lardo scooted a little closer to him so she could drop her head onto his arm.

“Bits. Even if… even if it’s the worst response, you won’t have to see him if you don’t want to. The team won’t push it.”

Bitty shot her a look but she just shrugged and said “Got your back, bro.”

The worst part of the conversation was that Bitty was considering it. He was imagining muttering too-soft words to Jack after graduation. Lardo was back to drawing and humming the occasional line of whatever song was stuck in her head, but Bitty was still stuck on the possibility of actually telling him.

“He’s a professional hockey player now, though. There’s no sense in making things harder than they ought to be.” He tried to sound decisive, but it came out sounding more like a scared question.

Lardo’s eyebrows jumped and she gave Bitty an appraising look. Apparently she thought he had dropped the subject, but she barely missed a beat. “Harder… for him? Or for you?”

And that was the problem. The answer was always going to be For Jack. Bitty didn’t want to say how he felt because it would make things harder for Jack. It would make things awkward for Jack. It wouldn’t be fair to Jack.

“For Jack, of course! I’ll be fine!”

“Bits…” Lardo managed to sound disappointed, worried, sad all at once and Bitty was reminded why she was the best Team Manager.

 

 

He shook his head and looked down at the yard, knowing he couldn’t look her in the eye.

They sat in silence for a while longer until Bitty started shivering just a bit too much. Just before they slid back inside through the window, Lardo put a hand on Bitty’s bicep.

“Either way, you are brave.”

Without any sort of explanation, Lardo slipped in the window and was off down the hall, presumably to go find Shitty or give Ransom shit for studying for finals already.

Bitty was left outside with a confused look. Jack walked upstairs just then and tilted his head at the sight of Bitty just standing in front of the window.

“Bittle? You ok?”

With a soft shake of his head, Bitty smiled and climbed in the window. “Oh yeah, Lardo’s just got me thinking is all.”

The left corner of Jack’s mouth pulled up into a soft smile and Bitty’s heart hurt just a smidge too much.

“She has a bad habit of making us do that, eh?”

In a heartbeat, Bitty’s besotted smile slid into a smirk. “Oh yeah,  _ eh _ .”

As far as chirps go, it was a pretty weak one, but it made Jack smile and that was really Bitty’s only goal. Jack shook his head and turned in the door to his room with a small wave.

“Goodnight Bittle.”

And well, if nothing else could convince Bitty, Jack’s fond tone did the trick.

He tried.

He really did.

“…Jack, I… I…”

He couldn’t look up.

He couldn’t do it.

  
  


 

Everyone at the airport probably thought he had lost all of his marbles, and then some.

Bitty was rolling his suitcase through Logan International and he could not stop smiling.

The poor shuttle driver from Samwell kept shooting him worried looks in the rearview mirror the whole drive, and it didn’t matter how full the shuttle got, no one seemed inclined to sit next to the blonde kid grinning the whole drive. Or maybe there weren’t that many people on the shuttle. Bitty didn’t have a lot of time to look up between the steady stream of texts Jack had been sending.

When he went through security, he had been pulled aside for a full-body search. He supposed a college kid grinning and watching fondly as his phone slid into the xray machine was a little suspicious.

He walked past his gate a little ways to find an open plug next to a seat and immediately plugged his phone in before sending a quick text to Jack saying that he was safely at his gate.

Once he was sitting, his phone stayed silent for maybe five minutes, which was probably the longest it had been silent since…well, since Bitty left Samwell.

He scrolled through Twitter for a little bit, but his thumb kept hovering over the button to tweet. As much as he wanted to tell everyone and their mother about Jack kissing him, he hadn’t talked about it with Jack yet. It was probably not good to tweet about kissing a new NHL player.

Bitty had to take a moment to process that he had kissed Jack. Jack had kissed him and Bitty had kissed him.

His phone vibrated and Bitty glanced down to see not a text but a phone call from none other than Jack himself. 

“Jack!” Bitty smiled as he put the phone to his ear.

“Hi Bitty.”

Lord, Bitty had to put a hand to his chest to keep his heart from beating out of his chest. He could hear Jack smiling through the phone and Bitty wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information.

“Aren’t you at dinner with your parents and George?”

“Uh, yes. But George is hanging on my mom’s every word so I probably have ten minutes before her story about falling in the Well is over.”

Bitty laughed and averted his eyes when a girl a few seats over shot him a dirty look.

“I miss you.” Jack said quietly.

“I miss you too.” Bitty threw his head back with a self-deprecating laugh. “Lord, how are we going to make it through the whole summer?”

“You always tell me you’re so good with technology. It’s your time to shine.”

He grinned towards his lap and let Jack’s voice drown out how ridiculous he probably looked in that airport.

Boarding the plane to go back to Madison had never felt so wrong, but Jack’s last text before Bitty’s phone went into airplane mode was:

_ Fly safe. 75 minutes until we can talk again. _

The day had left him utterly exhausted so he quickly slipped into a nap. He woke up with about twenty minutes left in the flight, which was hardly enough time to do anything so he simply scrolled through his texts with Jack.

The second the plane’s wheels hit the ground, Bitty turned off airplane mode on his phone. His leg bounced restlessly as he waited for his phone to find cell service again.

His phone vibrated once with a text from Jack and then, it buzzed another twenty more times or so. Bitty had a total of 25 texts from Jack since his flight took off and Bitty didn’t think he was going to survive the summer.

_ Can you bake pies over video call? _

_ My dad is an embarrassment. _

_ I know you won’t get these until after the flight, _

_ but just sending these to you is nice. _

His mother’s text got lost in the flood of texts but he eventually found the lone notification and told her that his plane touched down.

Not even being hurtled through the air in a giant metal tube could dampen Bitty’s smile. He had a whole section of the baggage carousel to himself because he looked a little scary with his giant grin aimed down at the passing luggage.

He found his Mama real quick after pulling his suitcase off the carousel and they were soon making the boring drive back home. Mama was talking about this new pie shield she found, but all Bitty could hear was the constant rattle from the truck that he associated with childhood and home. Now it just seemed to be a reminder that he was here alone and far enough away from Jack that they might as well be in different countries.

His phone buzzed twice, making him and Mama glance at it.

_ George says we have a break for Fourth of July _

_ Tell your mom I say hello please. _

Somehow that boy already knew exactly what to say.

It wasn’t until later that night that Bitty thought about what Lardo had said that night in the Reading Room. He responded to Jack’s last text and hesitated a moment before sending off two quick texts.

_ Thank you for being brave today. _

_ … Sorry I couldn’t be brave sooner. _

Bitty left his phone on the bed while he ducked downstairs to try the new bread Mama had just pulled out of the oven. He checked his phone as soon as he was back upstairs and he couldn’t help the growing pink spots that probably decorated his face at the his texts.

_ Thank you for being brave with me. _

_ <3 _

 

This boy. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm always over on [tumblr](http://betsytheoven.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/betsytheoven) if you want to say hello!
> 
> And if you for some reason felt kudos weren't enough, [my ko-fi page is now up & running!](ko-fi.com/kimske)


End file.
